"Blackout," "Damnation" Get Optioned

Fox 2000 and Chernin Entertainment have optioned John Rocco‘s illustrated book "Blackout" to turn into a live action feature.

The story follows a young New York City family, disconnected from each other by their obsessive everyday use of technology, who are separated during a New York City blackout and must find their way back to each other–literally and figuratively–in order to reconnect as a family.

"How To Train Your Dragon" scribe Will Davies will pen the script, while Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, and Rob Weisbach will produce.

In other book acquisition news, Fox Hill Productions has optioned "True Crime" and "Don't Say a Word" author Andrew Klavan's neo-noir thriller novel trilogy that began with "Dynamite Road".

The plan is to adapt the entire trilogy into a single feature with the same name as the final book - "Damnation Street."

The story follows a private detective and a serial killer in pursuit of the same mysterious woman. Samantha Lusk, Andrew Hyatt and Seth David Mitchell will produce.